Friday, May 05, 2006

Dear Wankerville: THIS is how journalism is done.


First, we start over at Think Progress, which covers the recent Ray McGovern-Donald Rumsfeld bitch-slapfest (all emphasis added):

Speaking in Atlanta today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was sharply questioned about his pre-war claims about WMD in Iraq. An audience member confronted Rumsfeld with his 2003 claim about WMD, “We know where they are.” Rumsfeld falsely claimed he never said it. The audience member then read Rumsfeld’s quote back to him, leaving the defense secretary speechless.

Why, Think Progress even reproduces Rumsfeld's very words so the readers can judge for themselves:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: …We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

See how that works? Person A says "X", Person B says "Y" ... hey, here's a devilishly clever idea -- let's go to the actual historical record and see who's right! Is that fucking genius or what!? Holy crap, what an awesome new development in journamalism! Shit, TP even supplies a link to the full transcript of that exchange!

And over at the newly-minted, right-wing site Flatulent Gas, we can read coverage of that very same incident, in which we learn all sorts of salacious details about heckler Ray McGovern except, of course, whether his claim was actually, you know, true. Which is why it's so vitally important for folks like Think Progress to step in and fill the void.

No, no, don't thank me -- just doing my job slapping around the wankers and enjoying every minute of it.

AFTERSNARK
: I would have left a comment at Flatulent Gas but, gosh darn it, "Comment registration is now closed. We'll post a notice when it re-opens." Yes, I'll just be hanging out here, on tenterhooks, waiting for that to happen. Really.

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